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Blog Wiki talk:Blogger's Code of Conduct
Use this page to discuss the Blogger's Code of Conduct. action=edit&section=new}} Add a new section If you you can sign your name with ~~~~ We also have a mailing list ---- 1: Taking responsibility Does declaring that you will take responsibility for copyright and trademark violations open you up to more legal exposure than you would have otherwise? Particularly given the vaguaries of international IP law? If so I think many bloggers might balk at this particular point. What if the violation is in a language you don't even understand? --Sethop 06:04, 9 April 2007 (UTC) Concerning the "reserve the right to change these standards at any time with no notice.": If you want this to be a shared set of standards that everyone signs up to and acknowledges with the badge, you've really got to have a very careful policy around how those standards are going to change! You might want to insist that everyone who uses the badge is signed up to an email list in which any agreed changes are posted to, just so that they know what standards they're agreeing to maintain. If on the other hand you want everyone to be able to tweak their own set of standards then you really have to consider how you're going to communicate to casual users / commenters that the badge means different things in diferent places. See below regarding Versioning and Variants --Sethop 06:12, 9 April 2007 (UTC) No anonymous comments I think this is a key guideline which will greatly increase the quality of online discourse if it comes to be more widely used. A situation where the commenters are registed with the site, in my opinion, always leads to better, more mature discussion. Also, it may be beneficial for sites not to allow people to post comments automatically, but rather have the webmaster screen them and then print select comments that make valid points. Some sites thrive on the discussion that takes place in the comments seciton (the onion AV club is a good example) but there are others where the comments section constantly devolves in to flame wars and pointless digressions from the point. A site I really enjoy, wooster collective, stopped accepting anonymous comments under the reasoning that they didn't want people using their site as a forum to attack people without revealing themselves. Wooster still allows people to contact the site easily, but they only print comments they feel add something (and they don't just print comments from known artists, random people can get their thoughts printed) and I think this model works well. :I have to disagree. IMO, any gain in the quality of discourse is outweighed by discouraging people from joining the discussion. Any sort of e-mail address verification system is going to make it significantly more difficult for casual users to comment. I read many blogs, but I'm not really a 'regular' commenter on any of them, but if something catches my interest, or I feel I've got something useful to add to the conversation, I'll go ahead an comment. However, if a blog requires any sort of registration or address verification, I'm not going to bother (I probably wouldn't make this comment if I'd hadn't been able to do it quickly and anonymously). I suspect a lot of people are in the same boat as I am. Requiring registration or address verification is just going to put them off commenting entirely. Filtering out these 'casual' commenters will make the conversation on a blog a lot more insular. The regulars will keep commenting, but lurkers or new readers are going to be less likely to speak up. This is a pretty significant loss, particularly in terms of diversity, since these are the people who are most likely to say something different. 71.199.58.125 07:32, 9 April 2007 (UTC) ::It's a valid point. It's a matter of tradeoffs. But would a sufficient equivalent for taking the badge be to assure your users that you will individually approve all anonymous comments before they are made visible? --Sethop 07:51, 9 April 2007 (UTC) ::I agree with you. Like you, when I have something to contribute to a blog that I mostly just read, I post with my own credentials as a "guest". I don't like registering first just so I will be able to contribute to the discussion. Now if for example I am a frequent commenter to that blog already, then that's the only time I register for my own account - sole reason, is to protect my identity, since my name appears frequently already on that particular blog. If we will force all blogs who will agree and conform to these suggested rules, 1then we might as well remove the commenting feature of all blog platforms, 2open up our own forums. No, I'm not being sarcastic, just showing that it is better to use a forum system for comments and discussions if we will force our readers to register just to leave comments. After all, that's what forums are for, right? Laibeus Lord OpenID I think supplying an OpenID should be a valid alternative to using an email address. I think most people have come to think that OpenID is a fine identity standard and should be more widely adopted. But I'm by no means an expert on this. --Sethop 07:57, 9 April 2007 (UTC) 4: Unfair Attacks I think a lot of people might want guidance as to what constitutes an unfair attack. There will be arguments regardless but having a list of rules/guidelines to refer to would make those arguments shorter. -- sethop "infringes upon a copyright or trademark" This desperately needs a fair use caveat at least as strong as the blogher code contains. Mike Linksvayer 05:52, 9 April 2007 (UTC) Versioning and/or variants? I think a bloggers code of conduct is a good idea, but it needs to be handled with care if it's to gain widespread adoption and become a useful part of the blogging ecosystem. I think it will be highly unworkable if everyone shows the same badge and then everyone has an ongoing argument about what the badge actually means. I think a better long term solution would be a structure similar to creative commons, where there are different variants, and different versions of the variants. Just so long as the badges are distinct and link to a page with enough explanation, I think that would be a more effective long term solution than one set of rules that people keep arguing over. Individual bloggers can choose which particular variant/version they subscribe to, and know what their responsibilities are, and only have to worry about changing them the next time they check in at the central site and discover there's a new version/variant that suits them better. --Sethop 06:31, 9 April 2007 (UTC) :I was thinking the approach used by the Definition of Free Cultural Works could work well here. The community edits a draft version of the definition, and when there is consensus on the changes made, the definition is replaced with the new version and the version number is updated. There is a permalink to each version, so people can choose to link to a specific version of the definition, or to always link to the most recent community-approved version. Angela talk 06:52, 9 April 2007 (UTC) :: That looks like a pretty good approach, and obviously, it worked for them, although I note they are still at 1.0. The question of whether we need variants as well as versions is probably best addressed alongside the question of scope, which I'll open a new section for. --Sethop 07:26, 9 April 2007 (UTC) Scope So we have: * is being used to abuse, harass, stalk, or threaten others * is libelous, knowingly false, ad-hominem, or misrepresents another person, * infringes upon a copyright or trademark * violates an obligation of confidentiality * violates the privacy of others The question I have is whether all bloggers will want to take responsibility for all of these, and if they do not whether they should have a middle ground between "all" and "none" that they can subscribe to (hence my mention of the creative commons licences). And then there are the other clauses. I think the most important item here is clearly the first - that is certainly what is uppermost on many of our minds at the moment WRT Kathy Sierra. However I am sorely tempted to suggest that there should be a clause regarding disclosure standards, which was a big argument in the 'sphere a while back that never got satisfactorily resolved, or not that I noticed. I was taking part briefly, see my rant on Pay Per Post, but I was burning time that my startup needed so I never really followed up on it. It seems like a fairly closely related matter so I thought I would bring it up and see if people wanted to fold it in or save the disclosure discussion for another time. --Sethop 08:00, 9 April 2007 (UTC) "1. We take responsibility for our own words and for the comments we allow on our blog." I don't we should be responsible with the comments posted on our blog. I myself have trolls, some do go to the extent of giving me death threats and will even call me via cellphone. But I still leave their comments on my blogs and let my readers judge the whole thing. I have comment moderation on mainly for combating comment-spams, but not to filter out my trolls and whatever comments they want to leave. So I really think that we as bloggers should only be responsible with what we are posting, not with what our "commenters" are posting. I can like ask a group of people to say bad things about another company by posting comments on various blogs. Sadly, this bloggers are for some reason, wasn't informed of the comments (they're sick, or new to blogging, or lost internet connection, etc. etc.), now the companies attacked can sue these blog owners for the comments posted on their blogs, just so because, on that time period, all bloggers automatically agrees to "1. We take responsibility for our own words and for the comments we allow on our blog." Just my point, we really don't have 100% control over the comments, and many of us if not all prefer to leave comments from our readers "and trolls". Laibeus Lord